PayPal Winning the Mobile Payments and Mobile Data Race

PayPal is leading consumers and merchants into a digital wallet universe and extending their lead with announcing partnerships with NCR and Discover. PayPal has 15 years of dominating online purchases but even more impressive is that they processed over $14 billion in mobile payments 2012. With the introduction of PayPal Here, they are chipping away at the major credit card companies on the payment processing side of the business and now seamlessly moving to eliminate the fixed-point, card-based transactions and the need to carry a credit card or even cash.The 3rd International Conference on custombobbleheads and Indoor Navigation.

The PayPal Here mobile card reader is becoming the preferred mobile payment solution for small businesses since the small card reader can be plugged into any tablet or smartphones ear bud jack without clunky cords or POS equipment.Choose the right bestluggagetag in an array of colors. The mobile card readers are a great solution for customers still wanting to carry around credit cards but the real move is to have the PayPal app on all smartphones virtually eliminating the need to have a physical credit card. PayPal users can already pay at a few thousand stores through their PayPal app by keying in their mobile phone number and pin at the point-of-sale but the Discover partnership announced this week will move that number to 2 million brand name retail locations by the end of 2013.

Combining payment transaction data with mobile data will allow consumers to get more information on their consumers and tie in offers through the PayPal app. Imagine driving by your favorite athletic shoe store and getting a notification on your smartphone that says 76 degrees this Saturday, great day for a run. New line of Nike running shoes just arrived in your size, 10 ?, black or red. Buy in the next 45 minutes & get 10% off. Thats pretty smart mobile data used at the right time and personalized to you.

It comes as no surprise that PayPal is bulking up on mobile data talent with 64 US job postings requiring mobile data experience. Job titles include Principal Analytics Platform Analyst, Data Engineer, Director of Analytics and Manager Software Development all requiring mobile data and analytics experience. Mobile Data jobs industry-wide are up 200% in the last 12 months so its obvious that companies are preparing for the shift to Mobile Big Data.

A lot of smart people have been imagining a world where our iPhones, BlackBerries and Samsungs handle innumerable routine daily tasks. But the one that caught our attention is the push to have phones act as keys to our cars.

The rush to use our smartphones for everything from flight check-in to purchasing groceries is making everyday tasks far simpler than its ever been. Surely it cant be long before the one device in our pocket does it all.

Some automakers, particularly those with electric models, already have apps that monitor various aspects of electricity consumption and other vitals. Chevrolet, Buick, GMC and Cadillac mobile apps powered by OnStar allow owners to remotely activate all functions available on a traditional key fob, including remote start, horn and lights and door unlocks securely from select smartphones.A group of families in a north Cork village are suing a bestplasticcard operator in a landmark case. There are other apps that monitor fuel use, help monitor traffic in real time, in addition to the plethora of apps for navigation,Shop wholesale bestsmartcard controller from cheap. music, phone and entertainment.

But unlocking and locking the car and then starting the ignition with our phones is still a relatively new frontier that is, thankfully, gaining speed. Hyundai, using an embedded NFC tag (near-field communication) in the car,A group of families in a north Cork village are suing a bestplasticcard operator in a landmark case. has designed a system that allows owners to unlock their vehicle, start the engine and link up to the touchscreen with a quick swipe.

Most of us, most times, dont leave our homes without our phones, and because they are central to our lives, we misplace them less (or at least I do.) Since my phone is always with me, I should, therefore, always have access to the car.

The automotive supplier Continental is testing a smartphone app allowing real-time centralized control for access to, and charging of, electric vehicle fleets. Aimed at fast-growing, member-based car-sharing schemes, as well as corporate and government electric car fleets, Continentals digital key is also NFC-based, sending encrypted data to specific smartphones when the vehicle is about to be used. Holding the phone a few centimeters from the receiver integrated into the windshield or elsewhere the phones SIM card would verify the driver, give access authorization and allow the engine to be started.

No question, keys are very 1980. The current crop of push-button ignition systems and smart keys that unlock with a touch of the door handle (or push of a little button in the handle) are marvelously simple and ultra convenient. No automaker should be without a smart key system today. But a digital key in our phone is the next level and automakers would be smart to embrace it. There may even be bigger potential in voice-activated locks and ignition systems, based on the recognition of the vehicle owners voice. How cool would it be to simply get in and say start ignition.

Aside from the main issue of what happens when your phone is out of power, there are still some obvious kinks, and linking the phone to the car creates almost as many complexities as simplicities. No one will want to take their phone out of their pocket and scan it over a chip in the glass when its cold outside, so its going to have to work while nested in the pocket. It will have to work in -40C in Edmonton or when the car is covered in snow or if the embedding part breaks off. It will have to be seriously theft-proof and be quickly transferable should the phone be lost, stolen or misplaced. It will have to work equally well for various members of the family or anyone who needs to borrow the car.